


Haircut

by PreciousTulips



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Established Relationship, Fluff, Haircuts, Love, M/M, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony is soft too, bucky is soft, rebranding, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 07:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreciousTulips/pseuds/PreciousTulips
Summary: Tony finds Bucky in the bathroom and doesn't expect Bucky to ask him to cut his hair. Naturally, Tony is afraid to mess up Bucky's beautiful hair, but they work through it together.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 187





	Haircut

Tony was only planning to cross through the hall to reach the kitchen for some more coffee. The white noise of the shower running caught his attention, and his initial goal shifted on a dime. Maybe he could catch his Bucky in the hot, steamy shower, and they could kiss and press their bodies together in a mess of love and passion. Of course, having amazig shower sex had the opposite effect as coffee; after having sex Tony was used to just collapsing and falling into a deep, much needed slumber. 

The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar, as if Bucky knew. As if he knew Tony was close to surfacing for energy in the form of coffee, and he was going to find the shower on and the door open and not be able to resist entering. Steam poured out of the door in milky waves, whispering to Tony to come inside. 

Tony inched closer, easing the door open further with his toe. 

He paused. 

Instead of finding Bucky’s silhouette behind the hazy shower curtain, dripping and running his hand through his hair to work out the conditioner he’d massaged into his dark roots, Tony was met with a different sight. 

The shower was on, but Bucky wasn’t in it, instead he was leaning heavily against the sink, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Next to the hand that reflected the light that touched it, was the scissors that usually stayed nestled in a kitchen drawer. There was no spare clothes, no towel, nothing that indicated that Bucky was even planning on showering in the first place. So why was the water running. 

“Are you alright?” Tony didn’t like the sight of this, he couldn’t see Bucky’s face properly as his inky dark hair obstructed his expression. Bucky didn’t jump as Tony entered, he’d heard the man come down the hall. 

“Yeah.” Bucky finally lifted his head and Tony was met with an expression of conflict, there was some sort of fight happening behind those blue-grey eyes. 

“Talk to me.” Tony murmured, coming close to run his hand comfortingly up and down Bucky’s back, pleased to see those broad shoulders relaxed a bit. It still startled Tony that someone could ever love him like Bucky did. How was it that just his touch was enough to give Bucky some form of comfort. 

Bucky stared at Tony through the mirror that the steam hadn yet touched, his expression unreadable. It was times like this in which Tony’s hands started to shake, and his breath grew a bit more shallow. He felt sick, nauseous, like there was an ice cube in his gut, waiting for what Bucky was going to say, what sort of explanation he had for having those scissors and that look on his face. 

“Buck?” Tony whispered, deep brown eyes full of worry and anxiety for the man he loved that still remained carefully quiet. Suddenly, Bucky blew out a sharp breath of hair, his eyes drifting back down to the center of the sink. Tony looked down too, noticing Bucky’s flesh hand in which the knuckles were white. As if this sink was the only thing holding him upright. “You’re scaring me, darling.”

Tony knew his own hands were shaking at that point and he hoped Bucky wouldn’t notice, but he did. He always noticed Tony. Even when Tony didn want him to, even when he tried to hide his emotions, Bucky always found a way to dig through them and hold them up to the light. 

“Why are you scared?” Bucky turned, facing Tony full on, and with just one sweep of those stormy grey eyes, he knew that Bucky saw every little thing he was feeling. Bucky saw straight into his soul, right through to the center “Tony?”

Tony gave an exasperated laugh, throwing his hands up, “Well I don’t know, you're here looking like that, you have the water running and you have the scissors? What am I supposed to think?”

Bucky gave a weak chuckle, looking at the area around him. It was a fair assumption to be worried, he’d say, though that wasn’t his intention whatsoever. 

“Tell me what’s on your mind? Please?” Tony grabbed Bucky’s hands in his own, rubbing his thumbs over the top of Bucky’s hands, one metal and one not. The pair held eye contact, the steam in the room starting to fog up the mirror. Neither one of them could look away, and Tony waited patiently for Bucky’s answer. 

“I want you to cut my hair.” Bucky finally spoke up, saying it like it was finished and done, there was nothing that could possibly change his mind. Tony’s eyebrows shot up, his mouth falling open like a fish out of water. That was not at all what he had expected Bucky to say, he didn’t think that Bucky was having such a hard time coming up with that decision. 

He’d thought that Bucky was going to say that he’d had a gruesome dream or a heart-breaking flashback. That he came here to the bathroom to shatter yet another mirror because he didn’t recognize himself. To smash something, to stare at his own reflection until the steam blocked his vision. 

Tony was silent for several long moments, just staring at Bucky with an expression of surprise. 

“That is what you’ve been here freaking out about? Sweetheart, all you had to do was ask. I can have someone here in just a few minutes and-” Tony was already mentally making the plans, knowing exactly who to call and how fast they could get here. Bucky shook his head, interrupting Tony. 

“No. I want you to cut my hair.” 

Tony blinked. “Me?”

“Yes.”

Tony burst out laughing, pulling a soft smile from Bucky, who had of course predicted his reaction. Tony couldn’t believe that anyone would ever trust him with cutting hair, let alone cutting Bucky’s hair. The beautiful long locks of deep brown were so gorgeous; there was no way Tony could dare touch them. 

“Absolutely not, you know I’d do anything for you but I won’t ruin your hair-”

“I knew you’d say that,” Now it was Bucky’s turn to hold Tony’s gaze, his turn to rub his thumbs against Tony’s hands. “But listen. You won’t ruin my hair, I promise. I want you to do it, and I don’t care if you have to buzz cut it-” Tony’s face went pale and his lips parted to object to that idea entirely, but Bucky continued, “Or if you just want to trim it. I don’t care. I just want you to cut it.”

Tony let a sigh escape his lips as his eyes drifted to their feet. He considered what Bucky told him, though he knew already that he wouldn’t be able to deny Bucky of what he was asking for. 

“Why? Why do you want me to do it?” He asked quietly, looking back up at Bucky’s face, trying to see if the answer was written there as if Bucky wasn’t going to tell him anyways. 

“Because I love you. Because I trust you. Mostly because it’s getting too long.” Bucky responded simply. 

A smile played on Tony’s lips, “Yeah, but have you considered just letting it grow? Could you imagine what it would be like if you had hair down to your ass?”

Bucky laughed at that, his nose scrunching up the way it does when he gets a good, rib-scraping laugh going. Then, he pulled Tony into the warmest hug he thinks he’s ever received, though the steam made it warmer. Like putty, Tony melted, his eyelids falling shut as his heart swelled with love and warmth. Bucky truly was one of a kind.   
“Okay,” Tony murmured, cheek pressed against Bucky’s solid chest. “I’ll cut your hair. You can’t blame me though if it turns out horrible.”

Tony smiled as Bucky’s chest rumbled with his laughter. “I have faith in you.”

“Too much faith.” Tony lifted his head and stood on his toes in order to reach Bucky’s lips for a gentle, soothing kiss. One that made his knees weak and his heart ache with the tenderness of it all. 

The next day, Bucky sat in Tony’s workshop, hair draped in Tony’s hands as he slowly, little by little, cut it. Deep brown bits of hair drifted to the floor around Tony’s feet.   
Thinking back to every task Tony had accomplished, he didn’t think he’d ever been so concentrated as he was completing this one. Every little bit of hair mattered, and it took admittedly a long while to simply cut hair. Much longer than it should have. 

Still, Bucky sat silent and serene. 

“I’m messing it up.” Tony whined after accidentally delivering a harsh chop which produced an uneven line which would need to be cut again anyways as he reduced the length even more. 

“No you aren't,” Bucky reassured with a patient smile. Tony groaned a deep and low whine, frowning slightly as his eyes narrowed in concentration. He was great with equations, with chemistry and mathematics and physics, but not with cosmetics, not with cutting another man’s hair. Someone qualified had always cut Tony’s, and he never knew it was difficult.   
He spent an entire half an hour looking for Bucky’s natural part only to find out that it didn’t matter at all. It hadn’t mattered one bit when Tony began cutting, but then when Bucky’s hair ended up shorter and shorter, he found himself looking for the part again because suddenly it mattered again. 

“I am, I think it’s getting messed up, I’m messing it up.” Tony protested again, with a smile at himself, however it stemmed from anxiety. What if Bucky did actually care and he was just pretending to be careless about it? What if he really did hope it would turn out well and what if he was disappointed?

“It looks great.” Bucky seemed to sure, so confident. 

“You can’t even see it!” Tony ran his hand through Bucky’s hair to find the uneven spots and to try and make it look less choppy. 

“I don’t have to. I just know it does.” 

Tony shook his head, letting out a puff of air, a frustrated sigh. Was it short enough? No, it was still kind of floppy. Which spots should be shorter than the rest? There were so many decisions Tony was trying to make about hair that wasn’t his, and it was only because it was Bucky that all of it mattered so much. To Tony, it was like the end of the world if Bucky was unsatisfied. 

“You can’t know that.” Tony murmured, and was only met with an amused hum from Bucky. 

After almost an hour, Bucky stood from the chair, looking like his old self again with renewed feelings of love and infinite adoration for Tony Stark. 

“Give me a mirror.” Bucky turned to look at Tony who grew pale, worried that Bucky was going to see how awful it was. To Tony, he could’ve done an infinitely better job, though in reality, Bucky’s hair was nowhere near choppy, and it looked to be cut by a qualified barber. 

“No.” Tony shook his head, wringing his hands together and biting down on his lip. “I don’t want to. I’m afraid you’ll hate it.”

Bucky’s expression softened and he reached out to grab Tony’s forearm, pulling him into a secure and warm hug. A hog that warmed Tony’s bones, one that could withstand the harshest of blizzards and Tony would still feel the warm glow of Bucky’s love.   
“You don’t have to be afraid of anything when it comes to me. You know that, don’t you?” Bucky asked softly, and Tony gave a slight nod. “I don’t care what it looks like, I’m so happy you did this for me.”

Tony sighed softly in response, letting his eyes slip shut as he sunk into the soft cotton of Bucky’s shirt, soaking in the way Bucky smelled so sweet. Goosebumps rose as Bucky’s metal hand drifted up and down his back, soothing Tony’s nerves. 

“Can I have a mirror? Please?” Bucky asked with a crooked smile, placing his chin atop Tony’s head. 

“No.” Tony replied with a bit of a chuckle, which spread to Bucky 

“Why!” 

“Because I can’t let go of you now.” Tony pressed his cheek against the center of Bucky’s chest. 

“Alright, fine.” Bucky complied, arms tightening around the man he loved. “How could I say no to that.” Tony was the center of Bucky’s attention at all times, and he’d been thinking for a while that he wanted Tony to cut his hair. It wasn’t about it being shorter, it was about trusting Tony to rebrand him, to clean him up and return him to the man he used to be. It was about Bucky the Winter Soldier turning back in to James Buchanan Barnes. 

“Thank you, Tony.” Bucky whispered. 

“You’re welcome, Buck.” Tony smiled.


End file.
